By Orin
DavidsonApril 18th, 2008
Immediately upon his return to the India team, Virender Sehwag proved
to the selectors a reality they should’ve grasped ever since
he emerged on the Test scene.

The fact that
he is a class player who should not be fooled around with, is beyond
doubt now.

Sehwag cracked
a stupendous Test triple century last month that placed him in exalted
status no Indian batsman ever reached.

It was his second
triple ton at the highest level – a feat not even India’s
batting God Sachin Tendulkar has accomplished.

Not Sunil Gavaskar
or Rahul Dravid either..

Such talent you
don’t acquire in every generation and should make a player an
automatic selection for his team every time.

Yet for Sehwag
he has suffered the same faith many of his ilk in the past –
the decision makers’ inability to appreciate his ability or
their reluctance to accept it.

Not every batsman
can score a triple century at Test level, which should’ve been
an early cue for him to be nurtured him in the team through thick
and thin, because you know he can come good at any time.

Sehwag, though
is of such talent and more.

He is also a very
good off spin bowler that suggests a natural ability of an individual
born to play cricket.

All the batsmen
with triple centuries in their careers are some of the sport’s
best talents.

Brian Lara has
three world records and Sir Donald Bradman is the holder of that phenomenal
Test record of 99 runs per innings.

Sehwag joins those
two super great batsman as only the third player ever to notch two
triple centuries in Tests.

And among the
19 others to accomplish the three-figure mark you have Garry Sobers,
considered the greatest all-rounder every to grace a cricket field
and Haniff Mohamed, deemed Pakistan’s greatest of all players.
There is also Lawrence Rowe considered the most elegant of them all.

Sehwag, though
is among the hardest hitters of those triple centurions.

He combines the
gift of wristiness of Asian players and power unheard of for players
from the sub continent. It makes him one of the world’s most
exciting player of the modern era.

It helped him
post the world‘s fastest ever triple century which he hammered
off the South African bowlers this month in Chennai. His 319 makes
him the holder of the two highest scores made by any Indian player.

Because no other
from the country with the world’s largest cricket population
several times over, has made a triple century, Sehwag’s 309
four years ago, stands him head and shoulders above the rest, when
big scores are taken into consideration.

And you wonder
why he is not talked about in the same breathe of Tendulkar and Dravid.

Possibly the fact
that he brawls in the boxer’s mold rather than fashioning his
style more in the elegance Tendulkar’s, makes him less of a
favorite among the purists.

Yet any poll among
the masses of Indian cricket, the fans who flock the stands at Calcutta,
Mumbai, and Bangalore, would have Sehwag right up there with the “Mumbai
Maestro”.

They are the ones
who relish the fours and sixes with satisfying regularity. It does
not matter whether they are executed with horizontal or bats or through
the covers or third man and point.

Sehwag also has
the unique credential that separates most ordinary batsman from the
great ones.

He is one of the
few elites to score a century a Test century on debut. And the 105
was scored in Bloemfontein, South Africa, not on home soil on the
mostly flat slow pitches, rather on the fast bouncy tracks against
a country considered second best only to Australia at the time seven
years ago.

The fact that
he came within one run of notching a century in one session, which
was also done away from home in the West Indies, is testament to the
right hander’s quality.

He is far from
being classified a “home made bread” type who flinch from
fast bowling on the bouncier stripes away from India.

Sehwag who once
pattered himself after his great idol Tendulkar, has not rivaled him
so far in consistency of runs, but is a better appetite for big scores.

Apart from his
two triple centuries he has two “doubles” and a 195 he
plundered off Australia in the caldron in Melbourne, among his 14
three-figure mark scores.

It helped the
New Delhi assassin become the fastest to reach 3000 Test runs among
his compatriots , Tendulkar included
Outside of Bradman, he is the only batsman to score seven tons consecutively
over 150.

With such credentials
including an over 50 Test average, you wonder why Sehwag was dropped
for an extended period in late 2006 and almost missed the 2007 World
Cup after not picked in the original squad.

Maybe the Indian
selectors have finally gotten it, now that Sehwag has written his
name in the record books once again.